Save, Spend, Give: Bob & Linda Lotich

So, I had a revelation about how you and I handle money differently. That I do it so well.

Yeah, that wasn't quite the revelation. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

And I'm Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. I mean, honestly, we've been married 42 years and it's in the 42nd year that I realize this, which is, I mean, our listeners are going to be like, this is a dumb moment.

You should have known this from day one. But I'm always on you. I mean, probably every week about little things you buy, like for the grandkids, every week there's some little toy. And again, we're talking $8, $12 here and there.

I spend our money on other people. Oh, you do? For sure.

You are the biggest gift giver. Yes. Yeah.

Which is awesome and terrifying at the same time. Or if somebody is going on a mission trip, like, oh, we need to help this person. I mean, all the time. Yeah. And I've always said there should be a budget for that, but you know. And I say then make a budget and I'll try to adhere to it. Somehow it's my fault.

But, okay. What's your other revelation? But the revelation was, and maybe you said it, I don't remember, but you spend all these little nickel and dime things and then I don't spend any, I'm like, I'm not buying anything for anybody. I'm not even buying myself a pair of tennis shoes. And then I'll go out and buy a car or I'll buy a guitar. Or a motorcycle.

Or a motorcycle. I mean, it's like, one purchase by me is three years of your, probably 20 years of your nickname. I'm so glad you realized this. And I have shut up about her thing of like, oh yeah, I did just buy a guitar and that was like $800. And I don't need it.

Mine was like $375. Well, so we need help. And we've got help in the studio. We got Bob and Linda Lottick back and they're going to help us with money and they're not going to just help us.

They're going to help everyone with money. So welcome back. Yeah. Thanks for having us.

And you guys are over there laughing at us. What are you thinking? I'm thinking your situation is very common. Is it? I think so. It is? Yeah. And also that we do the same thing. It is true.

I definitely spend, make smaller purchases and a lot of them. And he is like, makes a giant one. Oh, that sounded really big, Bob. A giant. She said giant, Bob.

She kind of had that hand motion going. So I have bought some motorcycles. Some motorcycles. Plural.

He said plural. Technically one motorcycle. I want one.

What kind is it? So I don't have it anymore. It was a Suzuki, Intruder, just a Cruiser. It's a little cheaper than a Harley. Oh yeah. Way cheaper than a Harley.

It's like the Harley knockoff. So I tend to buy bigger purchases, I guess. Do you have guitars? Oh yeah.

You got guitars? Oh yeah. You play. Well, let's go.

We should be singing together. I know. It's been a while.

It's been funny. Like I moved to Nashville seven years ago now. Yeah.

And it's like, as soon as I moved to Nashville, I stopped playing. Really? Yeah. So I might be able to figure out a G chord, you know? Why do you have a marriage conference once in Nashville? And I'm bringing my guitar on stage and I'm like, what am I doing? I'm in Nashville with people that can really play. It is funny. Everyone there is a musician. It's like a requirement.

They are, I think. I mean, it's crazy. You meet someone who's not and you're like, why are you here? What are you doing here? So you guys have a similar thing.

How did you work that out? Well, we have a really detailed budget and we actually have what we call a seed account. So that's our, our money for giving. So this is a game changer.

It was a game changer. Yeah. So anybody listening, like if you want to make giving more fun and you have a heart towards giving, but you're always like, well, I don't want to give that because that's going to pull out a grocery money or whatever, like which we did for years. And we just found that was holding us back in our giving. But at the beginning of the month, we get paid immediately. One of the first things we do is we put X amount of dollars into the seed account. Once it's in there, it's no longer ours. And so that money is just sitting there waiting for whatever God's ideas are throughout the month of why don't you just give that to that person? Or why don't you leave that person $100 tip or whatever. And it's like we're sitting there watching and waiting with the money there ready to spend it.

And it's so much different. So you put it in every month? Every month. And what's great is that we don't have to ask each other like if we're going to spend, I mean, if it's something, if it's a larger thing, we'll, we'll run it by each other just to make sure we're on the same page. But if it's like by that person Starbucks, it's like, yeah, I'm just going to do it. I had a friend who had a baby just about a month ago and she, she got really sick and her little baby got really sick. And I was like, and she has other kids and I thought I'm going to go get her food and then I'm going to bring food that her kids, her older kids can just grab and eat and some little toys that are not going to make a big mess in their house. So I didn't even tell him about that.

He might, this might be the first year hearing of this, but it was like that, that would be helpful as a mom with little kids when I'm sick and my baby is sick. But that's coming out of your seed money. That comes out of the seed money. So he doesn't care about it. It's not like it's taking from our grocery budget or anything like that.

And it's so much easier. The freedom for me to just be generous money. Like we're just giving someone else's money at that point. Well, your book is called Simple Money, Rich Life.

I love this. 21 day kickstart to stress free money management. Yeah. 21 days? I mean, that's a solve all financial problems, but that's why we call it a kickstart.

21 days of action steps to help you move forward financially and to put you on a good path. Yeah. That's what we hear. Well, give us the four, you know, sort of four prong thing because this is obviously part of it. And I'm guessing you don't start with the giving. Yeah.

So maybe you do. I don't know. You tell us. No, I mean, we're a big advocate of that.

I mean, that's a, we'll run down a little side tangent here. So one of the things that God has done at two significant points when we were trying to pay off a lot of debt, because we felt like God called us to give more in those situations. You know, I get people asking me all the time, like, all right, we're trying to pay off debt. Should I stop giving? Yeah, that's a big question.

I hear that a lot. You know, I'm not going to answer that question for anybody. I'll just tell you what God had us do in two different cases. When we're trying to pay off all of our credit cards and car loans, and when we're trying to pay off our mortgage, God called us to give more. And in both instances, we saw those things get paid off years faster than they should have.

God's math doesn't work like our math. It was a really cool experience for us seeing that. So anyway, coming back to your point, the answer sometimes is to give first, you know? And I don't want to make a blanket statement to say that's always that, but for us, it was, you know? So the book is based off John Wesley. He had this quote years ago that we've loved, and we've always just kind of lived our life by a little bit, but basically I'll give you the modern English version, not the old English version, where he said, I make as much as I can, from he was a writer and a preacher, which, you know, that right there, I think gets people like, wait, a preacher trying to make as much money as he can? Like some people are like, you know, so he said, I make as much as I possibly can, and then I reduce my spending. I save as much as I can, and I do all of that so that it can give as much as I can. And what I love about Wesley in this idea is that, you know, and especially again, as a preacher, like he understood, this is my God-given gift.

These are the natural talents that he's given me. So why not push that as far as I can go? Why not take that to its limit of how much I can earn from that in order that I can, A, impact people's lives through my writing and preaching, but then also the byproduct of that, you know, the compensation for that, I can now take that and use that to impact people's lives.

And so I just loved that. And so this book we built kind of off of that framework where the first part of the book, we talk about reducing and how to spend money strategically, how to automate it so you can save time, you know, because I don't want to waste, no one wants to spend all kinds of time managing money. So I want to do it effectively and reduce our time spent. But then next section is about how do we earn more?

How do we take the God-given gifts and talents that we have and use that to basically be in a better position to earn more? And then the third part, we talk about giving and how to make giving more fun than you ever thought possible. Because like both of us didn't really like giving. We didn't grow up like just loving giving, but we've come to like it being our favorite thing in life to do and the thing that we get the most joy out of. And then the fourth part is enjoying all of this, like enjoying spending money, not feeling guilty, but also enjoying the process of making money, enjoying the process of being strategic with our spending and enjoying giving.

And I believe that we can enjoy all facets of our financial lives and that's what we're after. I remember when Dave and I first got married, we came on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ crew and we basically were making very little money. We were raising our support and when it came time to give, it felt like we're making nothing.

We're in ministry, but we still tithed. But man, I remember people talking about saving, putting the money away and we were like, we can barely live on what we're making. And I think a lot of people are feeling that, that crunch, especially with the economy right now is crazy. Inflation is not helping. Inflation is crazy.

So can we still live within our means or do we need to sell our house and move into a little apartment? Yeah, so I think that's one of the interesting things. So many of our financial decisions, because we all have these mindsets and patterns that we get into of how we do things.

Like I do this role, you do that role or whatever. In our finances, it's like we develop routines of this is what we do with our money. These are the cars we drive. This is house we live in, whatever, all that stuff. And I think it's really powerful when you begin questioning all those assumptions that we've built up about all these things and just asking the question, all right, what does it look like if we only have one car instead of two cars? All right, what does it look like if we moved out?

Because I mean, we've been asking this question. So like right now we're in Franklin, Tennessee. We all know real estate has whatever been crazy.

And we're looking at on Zillow what it says our house is worth. I'm like, man, we could sell. We've had that conversation. So I think just asking questions about that. It's like, all right, what does it look like if I did go pick up whatever a job, delivering meals or something for four hours a week or any number of different things, but just continue to ask questions of, yes, my life would change if I made this change, but would it be worth it? What if there's a temporary measure? What if I just did this for three months? Like we're offering encouraging people to do like a one month challenge. Like, because you can do anything for a month and oftentimes that'll just open your mind up to a new way of thinking about something. And so a one month challenge where it's like, maybe we don't go out to eat.

And just, what is that like? Okay, so the one month challenge could be something like that. This month, we're not going to go out to eat.

Yeah, just experiment with that. Because if you're someone who our regular routine is we got to eat four nights a week. Like that's just what we do. It's like, what if you change that for one month?

Like, what does that look like? And there might be all kinds of wonderful byproducts and benefits to that of you're eating together as a family around the table and your time with your kids is better or you're saving money or maybe it's healthier. You know, so there's oftentimes positive byproducts of these decisions that we can make, but it always requires us to kind of think outside a box and really to be open to some level of change.

Now, have you found that people are open, like when they read your book or maybe you sit down with them, or are they more resistant? Because every time, we mentioned this before, but it seems like everybody has the same perspective, which is the only way to get out of my financial situation is I need more money. That's the only answer.

And so I need more jobs or I'm not going to be able to do it. So we're just stuck. And you're saying that's not what you guys did.

You guys didn't go make a ton more money and you got out of it? No. So this is what's so funny. Okay, we have talked to so many people. I mean, every single time I talk to someone and they will tell me the same thing. I've cut everything. There's absolutely no money to save.

There's nothing there. And I'm like, okay, you might be right. But the fact is, like statistically speaking, you're probably 95% likely that you're wrong. Okay, so. I bet they love you.

No, I don't say that to people, because I hear this all the time over and over and over and over again. I don't have enough money to put away or save. And there's nothing. There's no wiggle room. So we had a couple that we were counseling who we were talking through and they came to us because basically they're like, all right, what were they saying? They need to move out of their house or something? I think they were going to move out of their house. Because they couldn't afford reps. She was like pregnant, about to have a baby. It was like, this is not the time to be moving houses.

They were in really bad financial situation. And so Bob said, okay, well, I want you to do this exercise. I want you to track what you're spending and what you're spending it on. So there's, you know, what is it?

Personal capital? Yeah. So the first question we asked them was, all right, how much do you think you're spending on eating out? Okay. And so they said, $200.

We're pretty consistently spending $200. And I said, yeah, do this. Okay. And this is something we're always recommending. This is fantastic advice if you are not doing this. Step number one. Start tracking your spending. Start paying attention to where it's going. Yes.

You can write it down on a piece of paper, just like a food journal, whatever, that type of thing. But simply by doing that, you will spend less money. Okay. We're going to do this. Guarantee it. Let's do this next month. Guarantee it.

Finally, she says yes. No, you're the one that doesn't want to put it on the plan. There you go.

I'm the one. Okay. So we're going to do a journal. You can write it down. You can do that if you're old school. Put it in our phone. You can use an app.

Yeah. Personal capital or mint.com. You can go in there, get your bank account information or your credit card, like if you're comfortable doing that. Mint.com.

Or what's the other one? Mint.com or personal capital. Personal capital.

Both of them will do this. Personal capital. Okay. You can go on there and they will spit back out exactly where you've spent your money for the last three months. And so you can find out if you actually are spending $200 eating out or the $500 a month on grocery that you think you are. Because people are almost always wrong.

So they're not tracking it. So this couple, have they underestimated or overestimated what they're spending? Almost everybody underestimates what they're spending.

Yeah. People said $200 a month. They went and checked and they were spending $800 a month eating out. So it was like, just like that, they found $600 a month.

A month. Wow. And so. Like, you don't have to move.

Yeah. Order. You just need to cook a few meals at home. It's such a simple problem. What I like to think about this is, okay, you're spending $800. You can continue spending $800.

This is your choice if you want to move. Yeah. It doesn't matter to me what you do. Right. Yeah. That's your choice.

However you want to spend it. That's what's important to us. Right. But it's good to know that. Oh, yeah.

To know that I'm choosing to eat out $800 a month and move out of my house. Yeah. Right.

So we can eat out. Yeah. Like, that's why it's so important to track, to know what's going on, because you can't identify the problems if you don't know that they're there. Okay. So that's our number one step.

Start tracking. Okay. You ready for this, Dave? I'm ready.

We're going to do it. Okay. I've already done it.

No, you haven't. I track everything. Anyway, keep going. We're going to do the next step. Like, okay. We're starting to see where it's going. So yeah, this is good information for us, the people who aren't paying attention to what's going on. He has to look at me. For us.

I know, but this is you and me. Yes. Because I remember Bob came to me one time and said, do you know you're spending, what was it? I think it was $200 or $300 a month.

$200 or $300 a month on Starbucks. Okay. This was the one that I was trying to hide from him. Is this when you cried? No, this is after.

I'm guessing a lot of people spend that on Starbucks. So I'm proud of myself. I'm sure. I didn't do this in a passing judgment way. He really didn't. Oh.

What'd that sound like then? He just said, here's some information. It was like he just handed me this information and then he walked away. I mean, which was brilliant because now he left it to me to make the decision. Oh, that's really wise. I mean, Bob, you weren't mad.

It's so wise. No. Oh, honey. I don't think I was mad. Did you hear that part?

How he did it? That was good. That's why I asked him if he was mad. Are we fighting right now? Are you kidding me? Yes, that's exactly what you would have said. That doesn't work well.

I've learned that doesn't work well. Do you know where this money's going now? Here's why he could do that is because we have our budget set up in a way that we each have our own personal spending money, which is another marriage game changer to where you don't have to ask him permission to do the stuff that you want to do. Does he have to tell me how much it can be? And he doesn't have to ask your permission. He can save up his money as long as he wants and then go buy his whatever, guitar, motorcycle. Third Telecaster.

You don't have three of those. You don't care because that's not affecting you and what you spent. Well, my problem is I usually don't care anyway. I'm like, no, don't get your, I don't care, you know, because I know I'm spending money. So I'm almost feeling better that he's doing it.

That's hilarious. But this is better this way. Right. Because then now you're not feeling guilty for any of the money you're spending. Yeah.

And then he doesn't care either. How do you determine how much that is? Well, I mean, that's different for every family, but like we, is it a percentage fluctuates based on what is coming in. Yeah.

But generally it's a set amount like for each month, you know, we should get a few hundred dollars of basically disposable money that we can spend on everything. But the thing that's so powerful too is that you're no longer having to have a conversation with your spouse about, Hey, can I buy this? Yeah. So many couples are doing that constantly asking each other. Yeah, right. And that's a point of contention that's unnecessary. Well, and it makes, you know, someone in my shoes feel like I have to ask permission.

It makes me feel like a child. I'm going to ask my dad if I can spend something. Yeah. And so eliminating that by having your own budgeting categories. Now I'm all for, you know, them being joint accounts. Right, right.

I'm not advocating like hiding money from your spouse, but I think it's really powerful and important to have your own money where you can be you without judgment from your spouse. She doesn't get mad when I buy a third saw from Lowe's, you know, and I don't get mad when she buys whatever. Another saw.

What are you doing? Why do we have 12 saws? I don't know why.

She always brings up saws. They're all different. And they all do different things. But it's funny. I know. Exactly. They do different things.

Go for it. Do you have different guitars for different sounds, the same thing? It's weird. And this has no interest to me. So it could be, if our money's all in one bucket, I could just be going, why are you buying another saw?

This is annoying to me. But instead I go, go ahead, buy your saw, and I'm going to go buy another pair of shoes. Is that the only thing you do separate with the count or do you give out a separate two or is that more joint?

Everything else is joint. We have our own personal spending money, which is you go have as much fun as you want. Just keep it within this amount. Do you do a percentage of your income or do you just pick a number every month?

It's normally just that number, just a few hundred hours each month. And it'll fluctuate, we generally, we get a paycheck from our business and so as long as the paycheck is staying stable, we'll keep it as fast. So if you really want to get something that's a little more expensive than what you're getting monthly, you're going to save. I have to save up for it. You're not going to Bob and going, hey, I need more money. You're going to go, you know what? I'm going to save for it.

Sometimes I will. I was going to say like 200 a month, it's going to take a while to save up for something big. For something big.

Right. I'm going to spend my money and she's like, you got a lot of money over there. Are you going to use all that? I'm always. Ooh, do you try to get it to give you stuff? Oh no, sometimes I do.

I would too. We can be generous with it too. But so he hands me this information, right?

Like let's go back to this. And since it's coming out of my spending money, he doesn't really care, which is just a matter of fact. That's a great thing right there. So he just says.

That would change the game. Here's this information. I just want you to have it.

And I think it was $2,400 a year is like what we figured out. And then he walks away and then I'm like, oh man, now I can't unknow this, right? But then you get to make the decision that you want to make based on the information you have. And I think that's why this is so powerful is because you can decide what you want to do next. But when you don't have any of that information, and I think that's why there's so many fights is nobody has any of this information and they're all just guessing based on how it feels. And it feels like you just bought four saws this month, you know?

And he's like, well, it feels like you just bought three pair of shoes. And so like, we're both having this like, but we don't actually know what's going on. Yeah, that's good.

So to me, this is game changing. So even those two things, you have your seed account, you have a personal account for personal spending. If my money goes toward like giving things to people, buying things to people, does that come out of my personal or my seed? I mean, we'd pull it out of seed, but at the same time, I mean, this is one of those things where God's just constantly working on our hearts. You've had moments where you felt like God wanted you to give out of your spending. Just as a practice to be like, who's money really is?

Yeah, that's good. You know, where I remember getting $100 for my mom for my birthday one year. And I had spent that $100 25 ways in my head, because I'm that kind of girl, but I drove through the Chick-fil-A in Franklin, Tennessee.

It's very, Franklin is a nice part of town. So I drive through the Chick-fil-A and there was a man standing there with a sign saying, I've lost my job, I have kids to support. And I remember pulling through and I had that crisp $100 bill sitting in my wallet and God was like, that's for him. And I was like, oh, but actually that's for me. That came from my mom. But I thought, yeah. It came from my parents.

It's for my birthday. And he was like, no, and I was like, okay. And so it came from my spending money and it was really good because for me, it just reminded me where, where is my trust?

Where is, you know, where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. And so I was like, my treasure is more in helping someone else than just getting that necklace I wanted or, you know, whatever you ever drive by that person and not feel a nudge to give. Because every time I see one, I think I should be given whatever's in my wallet. Yeah. I didn't know you feel that.

I often feel that and I feel really bad when I don't. It's like... See, you need a seed account. Well, I mean, yeah, yeah. Because yeah, I'm thinking I'm just going to give cash rather than what we give. Because we have a giving percentage that we, you know, give, but I've never seen it like that. Yeah.

The seed account. So maybe that's the way to think of it. That's the way to think of it. Yeah.

How do I buy somebody without stopping? No, I totally do. Yeah. Yeah.

I kind of wait for that nudge of God putting that on my heart to give. I mean, so yeah, I do. Okay. I didn't know. See, we have no knowledge. David aren't doing therapy right now. Here we are right here.

We're that couple. Yeah. But see, that makes it easy. If you have this money that's designated to give, it makes it like, oh yeah, it's just... Yeah.

Here we go. How much, Lord? Then it's just how much? Well, and sometimes I will keep cash with me in order to give it to people. Yeah. And another thing that I've done is I'll buy gift cards for food that I can give away to people if I see somebody on the road or needs it. That's a great idea. Yeah.

And I think it's really good, too, if you have kids, that they see the generosity of your heart. Yep. Yeah. And I'm just thinking as we wrap today, if there's a family that's going to start writing down what's going on financially, that's a big step, right? Yeah.

No, it's... That's huge. And what do you do if your spouse won't do it with you? It makes it fun, right? Well, I mean, you don't have to...

I mean, I don't want to say you don't need their permission, but I don't think that you necessarily... That they wouldn't necessarily have a problem with you just looking at what's going on, right? It's like, that's just information. Yeah. I mean, there's so many different variables, different marital tension present. I know.

There's so many different experts here. But I think like anything else, I mean, if I were married to Linda and she weren't walking with the Lord, like I would still do my best to walk with the Lord, even though it's great when we're walking arm in arm. And I think the same thing financially, it's like you make the most of what you can. I think, too, to not put the emotion with it. Because my first instinct would be defensiveness, because I would think, oh, Dave's doing this, so I spend less money, and I get defensive, even with his tone, like, hey, we need to start clamping down. And I feel like he's saying, this is all your fault. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Absolutely. And so to have that discussion, I think what I'd like to do is talk about money.

I want to be able to not feel this bondage for both of us, and I don't want the tension in our relationship. I mean, the conversation would have to require a lot of humility. Yeah.

Because even when you're saying that, I'm like, okay, if I was the one tracking it, and Ann didn't want to, the only way to come to her with that now knowledge is to go, hey, we have goals, right? Mm-hmm. I think we both would love to save money.

We'd love to someday feel freedom for money. I've done a little homework. Mm-hmm. Can we just talk, here's what we're, here's where we're at. And I'd say, is this all on me? Are you doing this because you're mad at me? Right.

I would ask those questions. Well, the humility would have to be, yeah, I'm not coming in like, like you guys started yesterday saying, we're not going to come in here and yell at you about money. No. We're just saying we're living this life. That doesn't work. It doesn't work. Right. Yeah. Well, Ann, what's frustrating you that we can fix? Yeah. Let's figure out how to fix this, you know? Yeah.

Because if you're frustrated because you think you always have to ask permission, then he needs to know that so that you can fix that problem, right? Right. Like, it's not just a one-sided thing. This is definitely about how can we make this better for both of us.

And once you have the knowledge, she's also going to be able to go, well, look at this. You spent $1,000. Right. Yeah. On one thing.

And I've spent... I don't think I'd even say that. No. I mean, but you would have the knowledge to go... No, but some people would. ...be on the paper. You would need to.

I would. Yeah. I'm being honest. I mean, if one spouse is saying, hey, this is all you, and then you have knowledge to go, well, it is me, but it's both of us. Right. That's really helpful. And what you're saying too is this can make your marriage better. You're listening to David and Wilson with Bob and Linda Laudick on Family Life Today. Bob's got a great quote on money from the famous Billy Graham that you'll want to hear in just a second. But first, we'd love to send you a copy of Bob and Linda's book. It's called Simple Money Rich Life. It'll be our thank you to you when you partner financially today with us. You can give online at FamilyLifeToday.com or you can give us a call at 800-358-6329. That's 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today.

Okay. Now here's Bob Laudick with a profound word from Billy Graham. It's so funny as we've got our money in line, like it's just helped our marriage so much. Like in so many different ways. I remember Billy Graham, he's got a quote where he said something to the effect of like if he was talking about a person, because if a person gets their relationship with money sorted out, it affects like basically every other area of their life. And I'm like, I think that's true. Now tomorrow on Family Life Today, David and Wilson are joined again by Bob and Linda Laudick to get us all thinking about the question. Does God have your heart when it comes to your finances?

Are those two things connected well with one another? That's tomorrow. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.